The towing industry has developed a number of methods and apparatuses for securing a trailer to a towing vehicle. For example, hitch balls have been developed to be attached to the bumper or other rear portion of a towing vehicle. A trailer or towed vehicle equipped with a coupler mechanism may be attached to the towing vehicle by placing the coupling mechanism over the hitch ball and securing the coupler to the ball. Similar apparatus using hitch receivers attached to the rear of a towing vehicle and drawbars may be used to secure trailers to towing vehicles.
Some trailers are designed to carry heavy loads. However, connecting such a trailer to a ball hitch on a bumper of a towing vehicle may be impractical. When a trailer load is heavy as compared to the weight of the towing vehicle, applying the trailer load to the rear of the towing vehicle may cause unsafe towing conditions. In such situations, the trailer is often secured to a bed of a towing vehicle so that the force of the trailer load is generally applied over the rear axle of the towing vehicle to create more stable and safer towing conditions. In addition, such an arrangement puts much of the force of the trailer load onto structural members of the towing vehicle such as the frame.
There are generally two arrangements for securing a trailer to the bed of a towing vehicle—a fifth wheel hitch and a gooseneck hitch. A fifth wheel hitch is generally positioned in a bed of a truck and secured either to the bed or directly to the frame of the truck. Fifth wheel hitches are generally attached to the bed or frame in a permanent manner, i.e., tools are generally required to remove fasteners and other connectors to install or uninstall a fifth wheel hitch to the bed of a towing vehicle. Fifth wheel hitches commonly have jaws that are moveable to secure and release a king pin extending from a trailer. Gooseneck hitches generally attach to a hitch ball located in the bed of a towing vehicle. The hitch ball is typically permanently secured to the frame or bed of the towing vehicle.
Towing vehicles are generally arranged to accommodate either a fifth wheel hitch or a gooseneck hitch, but not both. To convert a towing vehicle from accommodating a fifth wheel hitch to a gooseneck hitch or vice versa is time and labor intensive and inefficient. Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved apparatus for towing vehicles that allow for selectively accommodating either a fifth wheel hitch or a gooseneck hitch.